A Handmade Assembly is a community event that brings together artists, curators, and others from the region and beyond to lead discussions, facilitate workshops, initiate projects, open exhibitions and share in a common thread, the handmade. A Handmade Assembly is organized collaboratively by the Owens Art Gallery and Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Arts Centre with the support of the Fine Arts Department at Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick.

Now in its eighth year, the Assembly is a response to the significant number of artists who have in recent years been using materials and processes that are laborious, often intimate, and usually associated with traditional craft methods. In the process, Sackville has become a centre for the appreciation of the handmade in contemporary culture and a venue for artists to discuss their practices and make new and necessary networks.

The Assembly interprets the ‘handmade’ in the widest terms, embracing interdisciplinarity and wide-ranging critical inquiry. Artists as diverse as David Hoffos, Karen Reimer, Jerry Ropson, Séripop, Ray Fenwick, Sandy Plotnikoff, Janet Morton, Yoko Homareda, Daniel Barrow, Graeme Patterson and others have participated. Curators, academics and writers including Mireille Eagan, John Murchie, Sarah Quinton, Jayne Wark, Janine Rogers and Danielle Hogan have also participated, offering their reflections on the handmade in contemporary practice at a wrap-up session on the last night of the proceedings. Another important component of the Assembly is the Heart & Pocket Revue, a crafters market supported by artists and crafters from Sackville and around the region.

We are excited to present A Handmade Assembly for the 8th time in Sackville, New Brunswick.